A marketed-out music festival aboard a Norwegian cruise ship is set to sail later this yr

  • Sixthman’s Rock Boat audio competition aboard a Norwegian cruise ship will sail in November.
  • Like Sixthman’s other impending “festivals at sea,” the 5-day Rock Boat XXI is bought out.
  • The cruise will get travellers from Miami to the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic.

In the US, cruise outings and tunes festivals have been nowhere to be witnessed considering that the start out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, a person organization, Sixthman, is wanting to carry equally back by November in the sort of a rock music pageant aboard a Norwegian cruise ship.

Sixthman specializes in “festivals at sea.” This includes the Rock Boat, an annual themed “floating audio pageant.” In decades earlier, artists like Brandi Carlile, the Basic White T’s, and the Zac Brown Band have graced the cruise’s phase. This year, the festival’s 21st journey – which will sail with a “classic video activity” concept – will consist of artists like Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, Switchfoot, and American Authors.

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The concept of attending a tunes competition aboard a crowded cruise ship might nonetheless feel tricky for some men and women to digest. Nonetheless, not everyone’s been sensation this hesitancy: the Rock Boat XXI, established for early November, is now bought out.

Cruising logistics

A sold-out music festival aboard a Norwegian cruise ship is set to sail later this year
The Rock Boat in 2016.Will Byington

Selling prices for the November 7 to 12 cruise range concerning $695 to $9,451 for every individual based on the room’s measurement and the number of occupants.

Like any typical cruise, the Rock Boat will carry its passengers from Miami to areas in the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic. Sixthman also has the reward of remaining a subsidiary of Norwegian. This implies the pageant receives to sail on the cruise line’s Norwegian Jewel ship, which is full of classic cruising facilities like a spa, swimming swimming pools, a on line casino, and bars, all accessible to its competition-going travellers.

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According to Diaz, Norwegian provides Sixthman with the guidance necessary to flip a cruise ship into a new music competition venue.

A sold-out music festival aboard a Norwegian cruise ship is set to sail later this year
A previous Rock Boat cruise.The Rock Boat

“This ship will sail with probably 2,200 or 2,300 rock boater, but there’s another 1,000 Norwegian crew associates that are there to serve the company, and they embrace these ideas with us,” Anthony Diaz, CEO of Sixthman, instructed Insider in an job interview.
Functioning below Norwegian also indicates the five-working day new music competition will have to follow the cruise line’s COVID-19 basic safety protocols. Appropriate now, this means overall health screenings, improved air filtration and sanitation, and “accountable social distancing.” But by November, these protocols could glimpse distinctive.

“We is not going to jeopardize the working experience,” Diaz reported. “We will adhere to the protocols in put when it is really time to sail, and … if individuals inhibit the practical experience we come to feel is most effective for not just Rock Boaters, but all Sixthman gatherings, then we are going to make conclusions dependent on that.”

Rock Boaters are keen to cruise yet again

A sold-out music festival aboard a Norwegian cruise ship is set to sail later this year
The Rock Boat cruise in 2020.The Rock Boat

In the previous number of months, pent-up demand for journey has led cruise lines to see document-environment bookings times and offered-out cruises. This year’s Rock Boat falls suitable in line with this pattern of cruising level of popularity: the vacation officially offered out on March 3 right after pre-product sales launched in February 2020, and community profits commenced late August.

In decades previous, the competition has offered out through pre-gross sales by itself. But in 2020, the enterprise had to face an obvious disruptor.

“We have been probably on trend to promote out just as immediately this yr, so had the pandemic not occurred, it in all probability would’ve been a further quick sellout,” Jen Wedick, innovative manager of Sixthman advised Insider in an interview.

Considerably of this level of popularity stems from its loyal clients, which normally vary amongst 35 to 60 several years aged. About 80% of travellers on this approaching cruise have beforehand attended a Rock Boat pageant.

“This Rock Boat community has been jointly for 20 a long time, so they’re just as fascinated in heading to see each individual other,” Wedick stated. “When we are on land from year-to-calendar year, they’re collectively each individual weekend at shows and their very little regional pockets. So the actuality they have not experienced that for a calendar year, they want to all see each and every other as substantially as the party by itself.”

It is really not just company: artists also appear ahead to the cruise

A sold-out music festival aboard a Norwegian cruise ship is set to sail later this year
This year’s Rock Boat lineup.The Rock Boat

The competition ordinarily sails in January but was inevitably pushed again to November owing to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately, when conversations around rescheduling very first commenced, there was “zero hesitation [from artists] about postponing for the reason that they have arrive to appreciate the value of these forms of events,” Diaz mentioned.

Like the cruise’s company, Rock Boat’s artist retention charge is superior. In accordance to Wedick, this is because the festival enables artists and enthusiasts to hook up with each other in a way that are not able to be carried out with “concert events at property.”

“[Guests] truly get immersed in the entire world of the artist,” Diaz said. “The artist sorts tighter bonds with the friends, the visitors sort very tight bonds with each other, and then even the other artists are in bonds with the other artists,”

Sixthman’s events have generally been promoting “well”

A sold-out music festival aboard a Norwegian cruise ship is set to sail later this year
The Rock Boat cruise in 2020.The Rock Boat

Sixthman’s specialized niche of “festivals at sea” spans past the Rock Boat’s rocking concept. The firm’s 2021 sailings presently cross a huge range of industries, from “Chris Jericho’s Rock ‘N’ Wrestling Rager at Sea: Triple Whammy” wrestling cruise, to the “Kiss Kruise X” that includes Kiss, to a Broadway cruise.

The noticeable frequent denominator among all of these functions is the cruising component. As a final result, its enterprise was of course impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which in the end halted cruises all over the planet.
“In the midst of the worst aspect of the pandemic in May possibly, June, and July of very last year, we moved occasions ahead, put them again on sale, permit persons get refunds must they pick out, and then bought most of them out again,” Diaz claimed. “Then we understood, ‘okay, we have a small business, it really is just heading to consider a year off.'”

So much, this initial realization has been accurate. Like the Rock Boat, bookings for the company’s occasions are currently powerful, with sailings possibly promoting out or providing “effectively,” Diaz mentioned.

“We are actually all set and craving to get back again out there, regardless of what ‘out there’ suggests,” Diaz claimed. “Our guests want to get again out alongside one another at sea on holiday vacation.”

Are you a cruise marketplace worker or have a cruise industry story to share? Get in touch with this reporter at [email protected].